Who Is Interested in Interacting With This Site?

                I will ramble on a bit longer here but it seems it is getting close to time to shut down Dialogue With RCS for lack of interest. The site has been up for over two years and is averaging only about 400 views a month and in that time I have only been contacted once. I incorrectly expected more exchanges with readers and perhaps some "How to" questions.

            I will keep you informed about my intentions. It may be useful for me to move some of this site to the Governance With RCS site. The Dialogue is an important part of governance and taking care of ourselves together.

Another Ramble Into Dialogue Practice:

            This piece seems to be mostly about what the dialogue is and a little about why I find it interesting and a bit about other stuff. I do not intend to say anything about how to practice the dialogue today. How is a big topic in which it seems few are interested.

           The what of the dialogue is that it can be a good way to meaning and understanding, shared meaning and understanding. It can be about kinds of peace, basketball, relationships, or whatever we like. These days I am interested in dialogue about taking care of ourselves together. I call that governance.

            However, The Dialogue is about effective dialogue. It is not complicated, but it does take practice. There are skills to practice, rules to integrate, and good practices to practice.

            In the practice you can find humor, fun, smiles, some laughter. You can also find satisfaction and new skills. You can find empowering meaning and understanding. Perhaps you can find companionship and co-operation. You may find yourself maintaining culture or even creating culture. You will get to know your practice companions better.

            It can be a supporting and strengthening process, and you do most of it with just the support of your group. I see it something like an adult primary and secondary school with no kindergarten. I can be much faster, but we find that we often have to learn one thing before we learn another.

            The practice includes the development of listening skills that helps us to a more useful understanding of our practice companions, ourselves, and the human world. Our developing listening skills bring more and more meaning and understanding into our lives. We begin to find satisfaction and joy by partaking of this kind of democratic talk. The practice may even let more peace and abundance into one's life.

            The dialogue includes being listened to. I the dialogue we can be heard. Speaking of being heard, the dialogue is communion among a group of individuals. It is not a monologue. For me to advance understanding of the dialogue I need a lot of ongoing feedback. I need to know you better to write to you better. I want to write about the dialogue in more detail, more systematically, in ways more appropriate to your wants, needs, and interests. The topic is broad and and can be deep.

            I often see the dialogue as a democratic stream of meaning flowing among us and through us. Still the dialogue can be much like a parlor game that most of can enjoy and still be a meaningful practice. Even as a parlor game there can be stream of growing meaning and understanding flowing among us which might not notice or give a conscious thought to. Still that flow of meaning and understanding created by us energizes new and meaningful understanding among us.

         

            The shared meaning we create with our dialogue is a force which helps us to more peaceful and meaningful families and relationships, helps us to co-operate locally more effectively, and helps us to more healthy societies nations. and to a more useful, resistant, and meaningful culture. 

The Dialogue is Not:    

~ the analysis found in discussion nor is it an effort to persuade anyone

~ an attempt to gain points.

~ an attempt to make any particular point prevail.

            This dialogue practice is a safer, more useful way to honestly share meaning, experience, 0pinion, assumption, and understanding. And this little essay is headed for more ramble. I hope it will turn out to be useful ramble through some valuable orientation and information.

            I hope that you have begun to suspect that the dialogue is likely to hold benefits for you. I believe that it has a variety of benefits for a variety of individuals. One can be surprised to find that a single minute they have to express an opinion of theirs to an attentive groups has real value for them. They are please to know that there can be many such minutes. Others feel there is important benefit in having the words they express are listen to heard with the intention of understanding. Others feel that the knowledge that each will have and equitable opportunity to be heard and that all will have equal opportunity to be heard. All of this can happen in the first grade.

            We all may come to appreciate the benefits in learning and practicing listening skills. Nearly all can benefit practicing speaking skills. Others are gaining hearing and understanding skills, and benefiting.

            All benefit and are please that many are gaining skills at expressing themselves at an extraordinary level of honesty. 

            Others  may feel that they benefit just by learning to accept that which another says is valuable information. Accepting it as valuable not necessarily for being true or something to be believed. But seeing it rather as a representation of another's opinion, interpretation, or experience. That is as a way to a deeper understanding of another whose opinions are very different from one's own.

            Individuals benefit in a variety of individual ways. For me and others a great benefit seems to center on a flow of meaning which begins to flow through a practice group. That flow can lead to a kind of thinking together in face of great differences discovered in a group. That sort of thinking together is sometimes very powerful, perhaps more powerful than the sum of that of all individual inputs

The Practice Calls For Your Effort:

    You will need to work the practice to gain your benefits. Listening, hearing, understanding call for your attention and more. Showing up and keeping appropriate silence take effort. Co-operating with your fellow dialoguers may be a pleasure, but also calls for effort. Learning the mechanics of this dialogue takes effort which may be called work.

            You can gain certain skills and understandings. You may gain some shared meaning and culture. Showing up may be a bit of a job. But there are more advantages. You can gain word power and voice projection. It is possible to gain a more peaceful and meaningful life. Some improve their use of a language which is not their own.

            This is about all the ramble in can handle today.

        If  you have an idea for practicing dialogue online, please share it. Remember, members must recognize each other and begin to know each other. You may use the "comments" app below.

            Their are other dialogue posts to explore at this site. You are welcome to explore them.

            Thanks for going on this ramble.

                                                                                                rcs

        

             

For a Successful Dialogue Practice

Try the following:

~ Address the group as a whole. Avoid addressing your words to one or two persons.

~ Remember that it is most useful to listen, hear, and understand.

~ Avoid giving advice.

~ Remember that a speaker is probably doing her or his best to be honest.

~ Avoid interrupting another. Your group has a way of dealing with those who would damage your practice.

~ Keep expenses to a minimum. Everyone helps to take care of necessary expenses. Do your part.

~ Really listen to to what another is saying. Improved understanding is a major aim of your group.

~ Learn to listen well and gain greater listening skills.

~ Encourage everyone to speak at each opportunity. The words of each are gifts for us all.

~ Limiting each speaking time to 1 or 2 minutes. It's great to have time to speak more than once at a meeting.

~ Remember that focusing dialogue on personal experience is good practice.

~ In the beginning get 8 or 9 interested persons to commit to 4 or 5 consecutive meetings.

Practice perfects.

More to Come.

                                                                                rcs

  

Dialogue Terms

 Here are a half a dozen terms I have used to write of our dialogues.

                I have written a few words about each to remind you about their meanings.

Assumptions:

                We have differing experiences and so differing opinions and assumptions.We have differing views because of who we are.
We often come to interpret our worlds differently from one another.
We develop conscious and unconscious ideas about the ways of the world which are difficult for others to understand until they know more of our experiences.

Defending:

                Without the abundance of shared cultural meanings good dialogue brings, it is unreasonable to expect a peaceful society. Defending our own or another's opinions keeps us from laying out our assumptions were we can all look at them and try to appreciate their meanings  and so keepings from productive and satisfying dialogue we want an need. It is shared deeper meanings we seek. Also defending our assumptions consumes the energy we could better use to achieve a clear understanding  of the assumption of another.

Go-under:

                Without good dialogue we are likely to miss opportunities and lose understanding s. We are likely to miss out on good positions, to go under and lose out as individuals, corporations, families, nations, churches, parties. The shared meaning we gain in good dialogue helps us  maintain, grow, and strengthen party, church, nation, family, corporation, and self.

Coherent:

                For many, an important benefit of dialogue practice is experiencing the power of collectively shared meaning. Most ordinary talk in in society may well be called incoherent. Our dialogue practice is designed to promote areas of  coherence in the vastness of misunderstanding. The meanings we share a cohesion of understanding.

Group: 

                For a truly effective dialogue of of sufficient variety of viewpoint A group of between 15 and 40 seems optimal. It is possible to do preparatory work with a dedicated, active organizing group of say nine may be adequate. A long lasting group with regular meetings is called for.

Thinking Together:

                Is a frequent result of a dialogue group and ought perhaps be a aim of your group. We learn to stay close to the same page and to carry each other's thoughts forward. Individuals sharing common meanings in a coherent way have power for peace and creativity. Thinking together coherently calls for dialogue sustained  long enough to to share a body of coherent meanings. 

You strengthen culture, create it, enjoy it, and pass it on.



                                                                                                        By Richard for you.

Terms for the Dialogue

Here are a half a dozen terms I have used to write of our dialogues.

I have written a few words about each to remind you about their meanings.

Assumptions:
We have differing experiences and so differing opinions and assumptions.We have differing views because of who we are. We often come to interpret our worlds differently from one another. We develop conscious and unconscious ideas about the ways of the world which are difficult for others to understand until they know more of our experiences.

Defending:
Without the abundance of shared cultural meanings good dialogue brings, it is unreasonable to expect a peaceful society. Defending our own or another's opinions keeps us from laying out our assumptions were we can all look at them and try to appreciate their meanings  and so keeping us from productive and satisfying dialogue we want an need. It is shared deeper meanings we seek. Also defending our assumptions consumes the energy we could better use to achieve a clear understanding  of the assumption of another.

Go-under:
Without good dialogue we are likely to miss opportunities and lose understanding s. We are likely to miss out on good positions, to go under and lose out as individuals, corporations, families, nations, churches, parties. The shared meaning we gain in good dialogue helps us , maintain, grow, and strengthen party, church, nation, family, corporation, and self.

Coherent:
For many, an important benefit of dialogue practice is experiencing the power of collectively shared meaning. Most ordinary talk in in society may well be called incoherent. Our dialogue practice is designed to promote areas of  coherence in the vastness of misunderstanding. The meanings we share a cohesion of understanding.

Group: 
Fora truly effective dialogue of of sufficient variety of viewpoint A group of between 15 and 40 seems optimal. It is possible to do preparatory work with a dedicated, active organizing group of say nine may be adequate. A long lasting group with regular meetings is called for.

Thinking Together:
Is a frequent result of a dialogue group and ought perhaps be a aim of your group. We learn to stay close to the same page and to carry each other's thoughts forward. Individuals sharing common meanings in a coherent way have power for peace and creativity. Thinking together coherently calls for dialogue sustained  long enough to to share a body of coherent meanings. 

You strengthen culture, create it enjoy it, and pass it on.



By Richard for You








 

Dialogue Practice: what it is about and what it is not about

DialogueWithRCS, Dialogue practice is a way to:

~  peace and good will.

~  see our words as gifts to others.

~  an activity which helps us to be us.

~ better understanding and cooperation through the meaning of word.

~  an honest, supportive activity.

~  greater awareness and enhanced consciousness.

~  develop new listening and speaking skills.

~ practice more effective methods of communication. 

~  preservation, growth, and creation of culture.

~  make a healthy, effective society more likely.

~  meet and know interesting persons.

~  put honest thoughts on the table where we can look them over an begin to find their meaning.

~ be heard.

~ find pleasure in speaking up.

~ understanding among us and within us.

~  exchange views and opinions.

~ satisfying relationship.

~ practice a "second" language.

~ more effective communication outside the group.

~ share experience.

 

Dialogue practice is not is not a,:

~  not a place to make a particular point or idea prevail.

~ not a debate or discussion.

~ not a game to win or lose.

According to Dr. David Bohm, dialogue practice is:

~ participating in a flow of meaning between us, through us, and among us.

~ a activity out of which emerges new and renewed understanding.

~ an activity which helps us to be us.

                There is more to learn, understand, and practice, but with these few sentences we have made a good start.

                Thank you for reading.

                                                    RCS

For Successful Dialogue Practice

Try the following:

• Address the group as a whole. Avoid directing your words to one or two people.
• Remember that it is most useful to listen, hear, and understand.
• Avoid giving advice.
• Remember that a speaker is Probably doing her or his best to be honest.
• Avoid interrupting another. Your group has a way of dealing with those who who damage your practice.
• Keep expenses to a minimum. Everyone helps to take care of necessary expenses. Do your part.
• Everyone helps with the expenses as they can.
• Really listen to what another is saying. Improved understanding is a major aim of your group.
• Learn to listen well. You will gain greater listening skills.
• Encourage everyone to to speak at each opportunity. The words of each are gifts for us all.
• Usually limit speaking time to one or two minutes. It is great to have time to speak more than once at a single meeting.
• Remember that focusing dialogue on personal experience is good practice.
• In the very beginning get 7 or 8 interested persons to commit to 3 or 4 consecutive meetings.